Supermarkets – still enticing us with phantom offers

I am really fed up with the flagrant dishonesty in Marks and Spencer’s retailing. It wiill take more than me to stop it.

As an example of their frequently used deception technique, I went to the store last week just to to select a pack of high quality muscat grapes. The price had been hiked to £2.98/pack compared with tyhe previous 2 for £5.00 deal so I would have been content to take a single pack. The same grapes are regularly available at £4.50 for two at Waitrose – not exactly noted for its low pricing.

The packs were marked with a half price sticker so I thought I would take advantage of the offer and took four packs as they improve with keeping. At the till I was greeted with a price of £11.92 instead of the expoected £5.96, and caused consternation by refusing the cash asked for and asked to speak to the manager, causing irritation to those behind me in the cash desk queue.

Many people would have been ********** by the situation, paid up for the four packs, and slunk off , and that is what the marketing department relies on. It was disgraceful. In no way could anyone shopping have ever thought that these packs were worth £5.96 each for 400 gms, and that they constituted a bargain at the price asked – even at the supposed ‘half price’ the highest that day in any supermarket in the area. I tore a strip off the manager for dishonest selling only to hear that at some time in February at the very start of the season they had somewhere been on offer at £5.96 for a regulation four weeks, som that there was no dishonesty.
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I would not be surprised to learn that ‘validation’ of the highly inflated base price of £5.96 had been achieved with sample packs in just on or two stores simply to give legality to the deception.

Please also investigate the way the supermarkets are ripping us off with their ‘local’ stores. Prices are often much higher in their ‘local’ stores than the main supermarket, e.g. Tesco, free range eggs cost 50% more in Express shops than in the main supermarkets, also making them more expensive than other local shops.
Please do something to highlight the way the big supermarkets are opening ‘local’ stores, driving out small local shops and charging higher prices than in their main supermarkets and also higher prices than in the local shops they’re replacing.

I fancied Sainsburys “Topped and crusted Sole with Cheddar & Spinach sauce” to try, on their website it said buy 2 for £5, single price £3 each, on the front of the freezer I checked it also said buy 2 for £5, I bought several other items and did’nt check receipt until I got home lo and behold I had been charged £3 each. I live 8 miles from our nearest Sainsburys so not worth the effort of going in to complain.

Hello,
For the past few weeks Morrisons in Reading have had Jarlsberg cheese ‘on offer’, reduced from £1.99 to £1.49. Last week I asked an assistant (who was stocking the cheese section) why underneath the offer ticket the ticket for this product read £1.49. She said that the ticket had to show the actual price. Today (11th May) I looked at the item again. This time it was not on offer, but the price was still £1.49. I spoke to the deputy manager Mr Candish about what I thought was a special offer which was not in fact special offer. He commented that it was good value but seemed quite unpertubed that I was challenging him over a specious ‘special offer’. I hope he never makes it to manager if that is his attitude. Morrisons regularly have ‘special offers’ in the fish section, especially on breaded fish. Indeed it is hard to find breaded fish that is not ‘on offer’ sometimes.
I think that supermarkets should be investigated for carrying out this kind of thing. It is after all dishonest, irrespective of the law to prevent just this practice taking place.

My Mum and I are sure we saw a newspaper advert for Fairy Snow Washing Powder at a very big discount in Tesco this week. When we went, all the Fairy Snow was normal price. Unfortunately, we didn’t keep the newspaper so we couldn’t refer back to it but we both saw it.

Tesco advertised in the national press numerous different litre spirits for £13 a bottle. All the shelves which should have stock of the offers were empty. Member of staff said they had sold out and did not know if any more was coming in.

Another sneaky tactic I’ve almost fallen victim to in Sainsbury”s is to plaster stickers such as “2 for one” or “any two for £3.00” on all the shelves holding a particular product. This often means that lots of stickers are underneath items which are not actually on offer at all.
The customer’s natural tendency is to assume the offer applies to everything on the stickered shelves when actually the bargain only applies to certain individual marked items. Unless you check it’s very easy to be taken in especially if you’re in a hurry.
When this happened to me I realised I’d been duped after checking my bill and asked for a refund on principle. The girl on the customer services desk commented that these sorts of tactics sometimes rebound on staff such as her because some customers get annoyed and take it out on them.